"He said that people were so beaten down and that he wanted to somehow encourage them by this act. It was after '68 and normalization was coming, so the nation was really decimated. He saw that there was nothing else to wake them up. That's why he chose to do this act. And that there were fifteen other people ready to follow in his footsteps. And that if the leaders of the counter-revolution were not dealt with, there would be others. I talked to him in the sense that he'd better did not encourage more people to self-immolate. That we need them alive to be here. To get them involved... Eventually, I know this only from hearsay, his brother came to see him in the morning, and then his friends were there. And that he finally told them not to let other people do it."
"They interrogated us, it was in Bartolomějská, after Palach's death - they interrogated everyone separately. There was me, Dr. Kmuníčková and Dr. Matějíček, who is no longer alive, he was an excellent person. They asked about when he was brought there and that it was supposed to be some kind of cold fire. It was nonsense, I don't know any cold fire. Then we were given a paper saying that we couldn't talk to anyone about what was going on. A kind of muzzle. Unfortunately, I threw it away - after the coup in '89 I felt that I was being stripped of my secrecy about Palach."
"Did his act affect you personally?" - "Yes. Your colleague asked me if I agreed with it, and I said yes and no. Because the impact was great. Especially on young people. On the other hand, it's a terrible pity that such a man had to leave. It's hard to talk about it for me to this day. I felt a deep regret about his death. There weren't many people like that. So courageous that they would go to the extent of provoking the nation."
"They interrogated us, it was in Bartolomějská, after Palach's death - they interrogated everyone separately. There was me, Dr. Kmuníčková and Dr. Matějíček, who is no longer alive, he was an excellent person. They asked details about the situation, when he was brought there and that it was supposed to be some kind of cold fire. It was nonsense, I don't know any cold fire. Then we were given a paper saying that we couldn't talk to anyone about what was going on. A kind of muzzle. Unfortunately, I threw it away - after the coup in '89 I felt that I was being stripped of my secrecy about Palach."
"He said that people were so beaten down and that he wanted to somehow encourage them by this act. It was after '68 and normalization was coming, so the nation was really decimated. He saw that there was nothing else to wake them up. That's why he chose to do this act. And that there were fifteen other people ready to follow in his footsteps. And that if the leaders of the counter-revolution were not dealt with, there would be others. I talked to him in the sense that he'd better did not encourage more people to self-immolate. That we need them alive to be here. To get them involved... Eventually, I know this only from hearsay, his brother came to see him in the morning, and then his friends were there. And that he finally told them not to let other people do it."
MUDr. Marta Zadorožná, nee. Bašná, was born on September 4, 1932 in Olomouc. She lived through the war in Motol, Prague, where her family moved because of her father‘s work in an insurance company. During the war, her uncle from Bohumín, employed at the local office, was arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo because he illegally sent food stamps to the needy, including the Bašná family. Her mother was also interrogated by the Gestapo, but thanks to a timely warning from a gendarme, the food stamps from her uncle were not found during the search. Marta also experienced dramatic moments at the end of the war, when men from her place of residence were to be shot as punishment, which fortunately did not happen. Since childhood she had wished to be a doctor. In 1957 she graduated from the medical faculty in Olomouc and was placed in a hospital in Jeseník. She got married and she and her husband settled in Prague. She worked at the post-acute ward in Střešovice and in 1963-1969 at the burns and reconstructive surgery ward of the Vinohrady Hospital in Legerova Street. Here she received the severely burned Jan Palach, whose deed and death affected her deeply. As part of the investigation into Palach‘s self-immolation, she was interrogated by the StB. In 1969 she left the burns and reconstructive surgery ward and worked in plastic surgery until her retirement.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
